THE MODERN MAN

 

THE MODERN MAN

The modern man does not want to walk; he does not want to run. He wants to drive; he wants to fly.

He wants his country to have broadest and longest roads; fastest trains; biggest airports.

He does not want simple homes; his craving is now for the tallest buildings.

The offices in his country should be most beautiful and ultra modern.

He prefers machines to men even for household work.

He is making all possible efforts to depend upon artificial intelligence for all the mathematical, mechanical, logical, psychological, medical,  and other activities which form the curriculum  of his worldly life.

He now prefers deadliest weapons to peaceful negotiations for solving inter-national disputes.

Walk and water are no longer his choice for a healthy life.

            The English poet Ben Jonson (1572-1637) says in a poem titled The Perfect Life that perfection does not consist in bulk. The highest beauty in nature is not seen in the tall oak tree, standing for three hundred years, but in a lily which blooms and dies in a day.   

             The Indian colonial nationalist and political thinker Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi preached for non-violence as also for simple living and high thinking.

            Here is the full text of Ben Jonson’s poem The Perfect Life:

            “It is not growing like a tree

            In bulk, doth make Man better be;

            Or standing long an oak. Three hundred year,

            To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere.

                                    A lily of a day

                                    Is fairer far in May,

            Although it fall and die that night---

            It was the plant and flower of Light.

            In small proportions we just beauties see;

            And in short measures life may perfect be. “          

                                       

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G.R.Kanwal

18 February 2026.